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Monday, July 15, 2013

Spotlight: Creation

Creation

Kat
Mellon

Blurb: Who
owns what you create?

Creation
is a provocative exploration of what it means to be free. Set in a
dystopian future where creativity is exclusively harnessed for the
greater good, two artistically talented individuals remind us all
never to take for granted the product of our own work and
imagination.

“Beautiful.
Just beautiful, Jess,” says Janet. She’s one of the Dancers.
We’re required to watch other

Talent’s
performances or observe their works for inspiration, so she and I
became fast friends. Due to the

organization
of our leisure room, I am acquainted with many Creators whose names
begin with J.
“Just what

I
needed. You’ve taken such a turn from your last work. What a
fantastical land you describe. I could dream

up
a ballet on the city alone.”

Janet
is right. A
City of Twine is
my best work, but only because I did much pleading to be able to use
the concept. I was supposed to be Creating on the subject of
Churches, but the idea of a City—a thing almost taboo in nature—was
just too alluring. I asked the Head of Focus, and he approved on the
condition that Wessely was to paint the city I envisioned. Of course
Wes said yes, so I got my writing Slab and began the inspiration
process. I was allowed to look through all of the old manuscripts
with the Old Artist’s projections of what a city might look like.
It was thrilling.

“You
should,” I say. “If the HOF approves, you could work with Kelly
the Designer and Tim the Setter.

Wouldn’t
that be lovely?”

“Oh,
of course!” she says. “That would be utterly Creative. Jess,
you’re a shining star as always.”

I
smile.

“Stars
sound so precious,” I say. “It’s a shame they don’t exist.
Can you picture what life would be like with the things we’ve
Created?”

“Like
the permanent skin artwork,” she giggles. “Wessely would do a
fine job. Did Turner say if it would hurt, or no?”

“It
would hurt,” I say, “because it uses sharp objects called needles
to
put the ink under the skin.”

“How
perfectly horrible,” she says. She clutches at her sides and makes
a face. “Why would he dream up

such
an awful thing?”

“I’m
not sure,” I admit. Janet twists her light blonde hair into a bun
and knots it on the top of her head. “A

world
without pain is a dull one. You know that.”

“Quite,”
she says as she pulls off her ballet shoes and points at her bruised
and calloused feet. “But it’s

worth
it for Creativity. James did a portrait of my feet, did you know
that? Just like this. It was wild. It has

never
been done before. The HOF was pleased and gave him an extension on
the mountain moving piece.”

Oh,
that mountain moving piece again. She’s gone on for days about it;
how striking and innovative the idea is of having one madeup Creation
move another madeup Creation.

I
often wish mountains were real. A character of an earlier manuscript
climbed up a mountain, one that was terribly steep. I hadn’t a
solution to make the mountain any easier to climb, so the character
never reached his destination. The idea of taking those things Steven
painted—he calls them machines—and
using them to modify such a huge mound of Creation seems quite
absurd, now that I’ve been corrected. The HOF subdues the
complexity of our Creations if our ideas get too out of the ordinary,
such as when I wanted to split the mountain in half with a
contraption called a saw. Some sort of sharp tool or whatnot.
Apparently, Tyler’s idea of a saw was much too small to cut
something so large down the middle, and by that time I had already
devised an alternate solution.

“Will
you and James have supper with Wessely and me tonight?” I ask. “I
notice the two of you have sat

yourselves
off alone lately. Collaborating on something?”

“Oh,
no,” she says with a laugh. “We just enjoy our alone time with
one another. It’s hard to have a personal conversation when the
rest of the Creators are around, you know? Funnily enough, I plan to
coordinate a ballet with segments of silence. I’d like that.
Silence. Time to just listen and dance and twirl without the voices
of hundreds in your head.”

She
stands up and raises her arms in the air, then spins and smiles at
the roof, her slightly crooked teeth

exposed.
It makes me think of something I’d seen during one of my viewings.
Someone came up with the

idea
that if small metal squares were glued to one’s teeth and were
connected by a metal wire, the teeth

could
be straightened. It was ingenious, and although we know nothing of
the Technical realm, the concept seems like it should be real.
Braces, that’s what they are.

Kat is
a young author living in Fort Collins, CO. She graduated cum laude
from the University of New Mexico with a BA in English at age
nineteen and is a master of procrastination and pizza eating. She
will soon query agents with her biggest and baddest novel, Flowers
When You're Dead.